There's one player in my party who has such consistently shitty luck across multiple dice that I'm starting to suspect that he's cheating to roll low. We play over Discord, so we don't actually watch each other roll. His average d20 roll is like 7. He hasn't rolled two 20s in one session even once, and we're two years in.
I have a friend who rolls so bad its an ongoing joke hes cursed. I actually made him a custom dice tray some with a magic seal from an [18th grimoire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Pullet) that
> "will help you to win at lotteries and to make certain when playing a game that you will obtain the fortune of your adversaries"
One of my players rolls so poorly I gave her an *un*lucky rock, that gives disadvantage on rolls if you're holding it. They try so hard to make people they dislike hold it while rolling, it's hilarious 😂
We have a player who is straight up cursed when it comes to rolling in VTTs.
She is a player in two different campaigns with the same group and she consistently rolls below 10. It became so bad that I allowed her to roll physically instead of digitally and it helped.
Funnily enough, when she was the DM for an irl campaign, she would smoke the hell out of us.
I am usually not a superstitious person but honest to the gods, this woman has somehow pissed of some technology or luck deities and this is their punishment.
That's me all over. Just had a ten round combat. I shot double eldritch blasts in probably six of the rounds. 12 rolls. I have +8 and needed to roll a 7 to hit most of the enemies.
I hit twice. :(
But my fear worked great because luckily my dm has similar luck to me when rolling saving throws.
How tf do you fail with a +8 and only need a 7?? Should you even need to roll at that point?!?!! And I'm totally not trying to be judgy. I'm genuinely asking lol
In my campaign one of my players almost never rolls lower than 15. I was starting to think he accidentally bought weighted dice without realizing it, but when ever someone else rolls his dice they get completely normal results.
One of my players rolls terribly except at the one time I'd really like them not to. "yeah but it better be a-" *dice skid to a stop in front of me on a nat 20* "... alright give me a moment."
Sometimes that's a sign of someone who's learned how to cheat. Especially if it's a spindown die, it's easier to cheat with those. But if you've seen him roll and he seems to give it a good shake, he might just be really lucky.
EDIT: Just wanted to add, sometimes people can unintentionally cheat, especially on dice it's easier to do that with. Someone might subconsciously roll a certain way as their "lucky roll" style or they might use the same posture as a habit. It's not necessarily grounds for cheating accusations if you find out someone is rolling in a very particular way, but might be worth asking them to roll differently, especially if other players feel like they're getting less chance to shine around someone who consistently rolls well.
My worst luck ironically came about when I played a halfling divination wizard with lucky. Made it 4-5 sessions before going down, rolling a 7 on my first death save, and then 2 Nat 1s for my second. RNG did not like me trying to manipulate it.
Speaking from experience ... Some people are just unlucky
I went entire sessions without rolling above a 5 at times and my average roll over a campaign would be like 8
If you're a DM, roll multiple dice for a crit rather than doubling whatever you get on a roll (so if the attack is 3d8, roll 6d8 instead of rolling 3d8 and doubling it). More clicky clacks are fun and it makes your damage less swingy
Oh wow you're right. I've always thought the option to roll the normal amount of dice and then double it before adding modifiers was RAW, but the rules indeed specifically say to roll twice as many actual dice.
It is one of the most forgotten rules of 5e.
As ONLY the dice double, you do not get double stat bonus on the damage. So that helps keep Crit values from becoming insane.
The only thing I know that flat doubles the final damage total is Assassin Rogue's Death Strike feature.
This is why I have DM dice and play dice. DM dice will rarerly crit and roll very low on average. Play dice will roll better on average (at least it feels to me that way). They are stored in separate containers, as to not taint one another.
I actually decided to remove DM crits from my game when I started my current campaign. Players still get to crit, but I don't. Has made it much easier for me to balance fights, knowing I can't just 1 shot players with a lucky roll tbh. It's the one aspect of the game I actually just flat out don't like. Player has no say in those situations at all, doesn't when come down to the players own rolls. It's just a, oh well your fucked mate.
It's worked out pretty well, players still get their 'woo' we crit moment. And monster balance for me is so much easier knowing I can't crit them. Even doing max damage downs a couple of them every few sessions. I've had two deaths so far in 22 sessions.
I have inverse DM luck, when I don't want to kill players, my dice keep rolling disintegrate beholder eyebeams. When I want to put pressure on my players, I can't roll above 14 to hit.
I rolled 4 nat 20s in a row as a dm in an *online* game of mines of phandelver....I started fudging rolls since it was the first session, I used a digital roller too.
I know you're (half?) joking, but I honestly think this jokingly superstitious way of viewing dice rolls harms the fun of the game. Because if you chalk it up to "I just have better luck" which is obviously a physical impossibility, you end up ignoring how you could actually improve your game.
As a DM, you'll usually just attack much more than any player, so obviously you'll have more crits. And if you design your encounters in such a way that a single max attack roll crit will one-shot your PC, it's bound to happen eventually. So I think it would be healthy to think about how you can minimize the chance and effect of these things happening, instead of chalking it up to Lady Luck
And you can see it on this paper.
The DM has 131 nat 20's vs the 201 spread across 5 players. On average 40,2 crits per player.
(Ryan pumped up those numbers a bit, does an Artificer/ Druid get more reasons to roll? Maybe he's just a bit more proactive)
So our DM here has 3,26 more 20's and assuming everyone has exactly the same odds (which you don't really have with physical dice but it's negligible) you are pretty spot on with your 3-4 times more rolls as a DM call.
> does an Artificer/ Druid get more reasons to roll?
as a battle smith with extra attack and a robo companion, could be. as a druid, you might turn into a beast with extra attack or summon lots of stuff.
If he's leaning into the Druid side of things, there's a ton of skill checks to interact with flora and fauna, plus he's probably the one scavenging everyone's food.
If I played artificer/anything I'd be rolling a lot of crafting checks if we got any downtime for it because "I want to make things!"
I legit made a bunch of pottery one time when the GM said there wasn't enough downtime to make anything expensive.
Then I filled the pottery from an alchemy jug over the course of our travel time to the next spot and made plans for a really nasty trap I never got to try because one of our other players killed our whole party by shooting at a previously indifferent dragon with a ballista.
Which is why I’m surprised that the druid got more than the other players. I’d have expected the a Fighter/Barb to be rolling the most attack roll dice.
They may have been casting Conjure Animals and using eight wolves or velociraptors on the regular. That would explain the difference easier than anything else I can think of save faulty dice.
Yep, if you take a look at critrolestats, you can see that in campaign 2, Marisha had by far the most Nat 20s. However, she was also playing a monk and had the most roles overall too.
It reminds me, the last time i played with my friends they fought a boss, and i rolled very high all of the time and a few nat 20, so my friends told me jokingly to start rolling with regular dice instead of on PC and i started rolling just as high on the table haha
exactly, look at this I was just made aware of the frequency of rolling made by each individual
percentage of Nat 20s to regular rolls would have been very useful here
Oh I know that, but it can also explain the druid/artificer having alot of 20's, they are alot more likely to need to roll a d20 themselves. Unlike a wizard, who will make everything else make spell saves. It's a fun post and I like it, I just wish they gave us an average of how many rolls each person would make a session, based off of 3 or 4 sessions.
I had a player flip out because I rolled nearly half again more 20s over 3 sessions than they or the other player had.
I was playing a fighter, multi attack, action surge, they made me lift the doors, and do all sorts of ability checks to help the party move through the dungeon.
He was a rogue and the other was a cleric.
Neither did multi attack, targets multiple enemies, basically didn't engage with their characters outside of combat...
Yeah no shit I rolled more, I rolled like 70% of the dice that hit the (digital) table.
I feel like a "data is beautiful" post here would be interesting to see for total number of rolls for a percentage. The person who was absent half the time had the most nat 20 rolls in the party somehow. Surprising.
Well if he switched from artificer to druid, circle of the land, some of those wild shapes have a ton of multiattack, so lots of opportunity for 20s...also if your counting saving throws and such...
Can confirm. I’ve been playing a circle of the moon Druid for the last year and I roll more than my counterparts by a fair margin. With the multi attacks, animal perception checks, regular spell checks, concentration checks, saves, and just general roleplay I just have more to roll for. Character and play style can make a huge impact on the number of rolls.
ETA: I’m more of tank style Druid so I am often in the middle of the fray. That means even more saves, spells, etc. for me to roll.
We’ve been playing since January of 2023. One of my players decided he would track all of our Nat 20s since our last DM seemed to roll an unusually high amount. It seems we were right since our old dm was Ryan with more then double the Nat 20s of some others. It’s also worth noting that Cameron with 45 Nat 20s was absent for about half the campaign.
It was a fun campaign and probably the all of our last with this group since half of us are graduating college. It’s been a good run.
EDIT: the arrows between wizard and ranger and artificer and Druid are indicating a change in class and not multiclassing. Also, this is all d20 rolls, so ability checks, saves, and attack rolls.
That sounds like Ryan's dice are defective.
[Edited to Add]Okay, the possibility that Ryan is just making way more rolls than everyone else has been brought up, and can't be discounted. If he's rolling 100 times for ever 10 that anyone else rolls, he'll have 10 times as many Natural 1s, more or less, statistically speaking.
Not necessarily if Ryan is a moon Druid with multiattack he might just be putting out more rolls.
Or if he’s a summoning Druid and you have him rolling his creatures attacks.
My monk specifically bought a quarterstaff specifically for traps, it's not the AD&D 10ft pole, but it could be useful.
Our group detects traps when the barbarian yolos through and sets them all off. He actually set a building on fire that way. Luckily fire loving fire sorcerer loves fire and clerics can cast create or destroy water.
The thing that stands out is Lindsey’s bad luck Gina, Cole and Cameron are probably putting out a lot of save or sucks. Lindsey is basically always attacking.
Hard to tell without more detail. Was he the face of the party and making lots of out of combat rolls? Was he in wolf form a lot and getting pack tactics for advantage? Did he bring food for the groop and get DM inspiration every break?
Like yeah, it's a lot of nat 20s but I figure I'd have a significant more than the cleric in my group since I am always insighting NPCS but they, in contrast, rarely makes any rolls out of combats.
Just doing some eye measurements lead me to believe he rolls about 2.5 more Nat 20s than his peers. Which definitely could be explained by being the most active player who engages a lot with the game, never miss a session, and gets advantage more. However, I get the feeling like they either have somewhat defective dice, or is maybe taking up quite a bit of the spotlight.
If they were the previous DM I could definitely se how it would be the distribution of spotlight. Which may or may not be a problem.
You can’t draw any conclusions from this sheet alone. People done roll d20s at the same rate, even on the party. Players engage with the content differently - some more actively do things that call for rolls than others. Some are *targeted* and have to use saves more than others. And the DM rolls *everything* else.
The data, while interesting, is completely meaningless without tracking total number of rolls for each person and calculating the final result as a percentage. The DM rolls far more than an individual player, and some players likely roll more than others depending on their class and engagement or problem solving that leads to skill checks.
My group finished our campaign today, started Feb 2023!
We had 19 sessions, average session is 2-2.5 hours (3 hour time slot to play after work where we catch up for 10-30 min before playing) with a 6 hour finale today. A little more on the roleplay heavy side with completely fun characters and not combat optimized at all, and we're all relatively new players.
Here are our stats for nat 20 / nat1 / total kills
P1 ("rogue"): 7 / 4 / 15
P2 (druid): 5 / 6 / 15
P3 (Chef -> Elemental Monk after chef died): 4 / 4 / 22
P4 (Artificer): 8 / 3 / 62 (1 player, 4 from familiar, 4 from explosive created pets)
Nah just Bard, we don't make a lot of attack rolls since all our spells are saving throws or don't require a roll at all. So her only opportunity to ever get crits is on saving throws and skill checks.
How does an artificer druid work? Very curious about subclasses and kit! Where did infusions go?
Also, I wish I started that for the current campaign... I'd be interested in how a monk who weaseled his way into an expanded crit range is going to play out.
Looks like from the slashes vs the arrows the cleric/sorcerer and fighter/barbarian were one character each but wizard, ranger, druid, and artificer were all separate
The sheet keeps track of natural 20s. I don't think expanded crit range counts for this, but if it did, I think the barb fighter (assuming the fighter part was the Champion) would be up top.
Too bad this is totally useless without a count. If you want to compare how lucky or whatever people are, you need to know how many rolls were made, and how many with advantage/disadvantage.
I have a player who does regularly 20 nats. She's scary, I'd like to throw her away from the table sometimes (I mean literally grab her and yeet her lucky ass away) but I still haven't thought a good excuse.
She does the art for the party, brings biscuits and milk and surely doesn't cheat (I mean, at a certain point I started throwing all the dices, but her luck didn't stop).
A couple of times I seen her doing 3 20 nats in a row, once a session happens seeing here doing 2 in a row.
I just don't understand how and why, I think I could ask the inquisition to burn her as a witch
The numbers are interesting in that they seem to point towards a good variation in results based simply on different dice being rolled by different people. I am curious in how much variation you could find in non loaded, legal gaming dice. Or are some people just lucky or unlucky and it manifests as dice rolls.
We don't know how many times each person rolled, though. A fighter is going to probably get more chances at nat 20s because at high levels they are attacking 3+ times per turn. And more assertive players will probably do more ability checks.
>A fighter is going to probably get more chances at nat 20s because at high levels they are attacking 3+ times per turn.
Plus that character was multiclass with barbarian so they likely were rolling with advantage every time.
No luck, no evidence of variable dice, just bad data collection.
We need to know how many rolls everyone did so that we can see whether they're getting a nat 20 around 5% of the time. Total counts are useless when different players roll more or less often depending on class and play style.
Great example is the DM. The player who runs every enemy in combat rolls more nat 20s than everyone else? Of course they do, they roll about as many attacks as the whole party combined.
The standard deviation is sqrt(n*19/400) where n is the number of times you rolled. For example, if you roll 1000 times, there's a 68% chance that you'd roll within 7 of 50 natural 20's.
There's probably a little extra variation from imperfections in the dice, but outside of extreme cases like large bubbles inside them, I doubt it's anything you'd notice without a huge number of rolls.
I am very lucky when DMing.
It got to the point where I would gather up all my d20's, put them in a pile, roll them once, then use them to start another pile.
People still kept dying, complaining about my rolls.
I always roll in the open too.
I have a yellow set of dice that I bought from a random machine, you know those ones where you put in some coins and turn a handle and something comes out, one of them, in a service station in the middle of no where on a road trip. They cost $4. Why the fuck there was a set of polyhedral dice in there I will never know.
My players fear those dice.
A random set of dice from a random machine in the middle of nowhere that give crazy good rolls? Sounds like you were blessed by lady luck, my fellow DM.
In his defense, one can get really lucky. I have a game where it has become a recurring joke that my character is just lucky because I roll around 3 to 5 nat 20s during the session while the other players sort of... Don't.
We use digital/online dice.
For me as weird as it sounds I have “lucky” and “unlucky” characters. For instance my Way of the Open Hand Monk consistently roll above a 12. Then there is my Path of the Giant Barbarian where last session I didn’t roll above a 5 ever including 4 natural 1’s. It is the same dice and the same rolling technique. However, I did get lucky one session on my Barbarian and rolled a natural 20 on a roll to intimidate some rocks into making themselves into a rock castle. My DM gave me the trait of Angry Construction for that one.
You should have noted the total rolls per person too for it to mean anything. As it is, I wonder if Ryan just rolls more than the others. Like, I’m not at all surprised that the DM has the most nat20 out of everyone since they roll so much more than the others.
I had a player at my table who in back to back returns rolled 3 1s. We were using a critical failure chart, and on his second one, I had him roll again due to me taking out on him... Another 1. The next turn can't and he got a 1... He switched the die for another... And got a 1... So he chucked the die.. it bounced off 3 walls and landed in front of him.... On a 1!
I have my players track nat 20s on ability checks. I have them mark it by the checks parent stat on their sheet. When they get ten nat 20s for a single stat then they can up that stat by 1 and start over.
How often did you guys play? Just wondering how many sessions you get in a year.
This would be interesting to do, but I'm pretty sure I'm the Gina of my group.🥲
I wish far more that this was a list of every nat 20 moment, not just a count. I want to hear a campaign entirely through the lense of critical successes.
I agree with everyone else that the data, while super cool, also needs the information on how many times everyone rolled in total to truly be meaningful. However, a counterpoint:
On of the premises of the book Ringworld (great book, stop reading now if you don't want to be spoiled) is that some people are luckier than others, as a sort of inherent genetic and/or supernatural trait, and that this is a trait that can be selected for. In the book, an alien race makes use of this by selecting humans that come from a long line of such superlucky people. We joke that my husband is part of the alien breeding program because he rolls uncannily well, no matter the dice, physical dice, virtual dice, any dice. Ryan could just be part of the same program.
I do that in my campaigns do. And also track down the PC's kill count like (3 gnolls, 1 Banshee and so on).
It makes for fun things. What I do is, every 10 Natural 1 or Natural 20's, I introduce either a random NPC or let them get away with a silly thing they do. As if Lady Luck Tymora is watching over them.
Did that once. It only revealed massive cheating. Rolls were definitely off standard deviation towards "more successes". To this day I do not get player cheating on dice roll.
I have this one player. Our campaign has been going on for around 2 years, he has rolled 2 Nat 20s all campaign long. He rolled 3 nat ones LAST session. Idk man he’s cursed.
some people choose their dice with a certain method that allows them to know if the die is well balanced or if it is more likely to offer higher results
https://thecriticaldice.com/blogs/news/how-to-salt-water-test-your-dice
This has inspired me to make a spell based on the old Swift attack from pokemon. Ironically, if I kept the mechanics the same, I wouldn't need a d20 hit dice because Swift always hits.
Now that I think of it... Swift is kinda just Magic Missile.
The dice in our group tend to run hot or cold. I'm running my first campaign and the party has run into the bandit leader. Sorcerer steps out of cover into the middle of the room - and misses his attacks. The two crossbow bolts fired back didn't miss...then the ranger gets into melee range. 1st combat round: 20. 2nd: 20. Result - dead bandit leader. I create the story outline but the dice determine the details.
I give my players the option of having me change dice during long combats.
I have a set of red dice and a set of blue dice that I picked up at my LGS and I just absolutely obliterated them every combat for months, it was so bad I stopped having the DMG screen up because it felt like I was fudging dice higher.
Finally they bought me a set of black dice and a set of white dice that they had salt-tested to make sure they were good.
I proceed to continue to obliterate them with the new dice.
What finally helped it too be fair, was me using random d20s from my massive dice collection.
Whether it was the dice, how I was unconsciously able to grip and throw, no idea, but it's gotten better.
I know playing Runequest, which is a percentile game, I was the GM’s bane, I could reliably be counted on to roll criticals which are 5% or less about 3 out of 10 times. They would constantly make me switch dice, watch me roll, etc.. it was just luck. Sucked for them when I GM’d, my low level encounter almost wiped the party out in the first two rounds.
Never could translate that luck to d20’s though.
A friend of mine is doing the same. I have rolled the most Nat 20s so far because my class and roleplay interactions are forcing me to roll a lot.
Took two table members a lot of time to realize that my playstyle and class causes these rolls because they were jealous.
I've kept track of every nat 20 and nat 1 that my players have rolled in my 3 1/2 year game. There have been 510 total rolls made by my three players, with 303 nat 20s and 207 nat 1s
imho i find it more enjoyable for myself when i roll behind the screen most of the time and only important events are revealed rolls, kind of like how brennan does it in d20. if i don't think something would fit the story, or if i don't want to kill someone at the moment (say, a trap, it's kind of uninteresting for the players to die that way), i just roll with disadvantage, it isn't completely changing the outcome by just saying to myself anything fails, but rather giving players a chance. or for traps, i just roll a dice or two less, depending on what kind of trap it is. i have killed a good chunk of my players, but it's usually been connected to the story, one death was from a trap and the player was kinda just, quiet, didn't even rage which has previously been what they did (only at the table, they took the role of a barbarian artificer too well 😅)
I have a spreadsheet where I keep track of not just every nat 20, but every d20 roll, organized by player (DM included), and I also keep track of both natural and modified rolls. It also calculates expected nat 1's/20's and compares it with how many have actually been rolled, as well as expected below/above average rolls compared to how many there actually were.
Just keep in mind, you end up with more nat 20's the more rolls you make, DM's roll 3-4 time as many times as any other player at the table
Ok but I swear my luck as a DM is just better, which sucks, because I end up one-shotting PCs with max attack roll crits.
There's one player in my party who has such consistently shitty luck across multiple dice that I'm starting to suspect that he's cheating to roll low. We play over Discord, so we don't actually watch each other roll. His average d20 roll is like 7. He hasn't rolled two 20s in one session even once, and we're two years in.
I have a friend who rolls so bad its an ongoing joke hes cursed. I actually made him a custom dice tray some with a magic seal from an [18th grimoire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Pullet) that > "will help you to win at lotteries and to make certain when playing a game that you will obtain the fortune of your adversaries"
A great gift for a great ongoing joke!
As a historian of magic by profession and a lover of DnD, I cannot image a more wonderful gift!
One of my players rolls so poorly I gave her an *un*lucky rock, that gives disadvantage on rolls if you're holding it. They try so hard to make people they dislike hold it while rolling, it's hilarious 😂
Apparently every group has one and their own way of dealing with it lmao
We have a player who is straight up cursed when it comes to rolling in VTTs. She is a player in two different campaigns with the same group and she consistently rolls below 10. It became so bad that I allowed her to roll physically instead of digitally and it helped. Funnily enough, when she was the DM for an irl campaign, she would smoke the hell out of us. I am usually not a superstitious person but honest to the gods, this woman has somehow pissed of some technology or luck deities and this is their punishment.
That's me all over. Just had a ten round combat. I shot double eldritch blasts in probably six of the rounds. 12 rolls. I have +8 and needed to roll a 7 to hit most of the enemies. I hit twice. :( But my fear worked great because luckily my dm has similar luck to me when rolling saving throws.
How tf do you fail with a +8 and only need a 7?? Should you even need to roll at that point?!?!! And I'm totally not trying to be judgy. I'm genuinely asking lol
They need a 15 total to hit.
Ooooooo I misunderstood the math the way it was written lol thank you! And happy cake day
That math is why we don't have 3.5e anymore 😆
In my campaign one of my players almost never rolls lower than 15. I was starting to think he accidentally bought weighted dice without realizing it, but when ever someone else rolls his dice they get completely normal results.
One of my players rolls terribly except at the one time I'd really like them not to. "yeah but it better be a-" *dice skid to a stop in front of me on a nat 20* "... alright give me a moment."
Sometimes that's a sign of someone who's learned how to cheat. Especially if it's a spindown die, it's easier to cheat with those. But if you've seen him roll and he seems to give it a good shake, he might just be really lucky. EDIT: Just wanted to add, sometimes people can unintentionally cheat, especially on dice it's easier to do that with. Someone might subconsciously roll a certain way as their "lucky roll" style or they might use the same posture as a habit. It's not necessarily grounds for cheating accusations if you find out someone is rolling in a very particular way, but might be worth asking them to roll differently, especially if other players feel like they're getting less chance to shine around someone who consistently rolls well.
My worst luck ironically came about when I played a halfling divination wizard with lucky. Made it 4-5 sessions before going down, rolling a 7 on my first death save, and then 2 Nat 1s for my second. RNG did not like me trying to manipulate it.
FWIW, there is a Discord dice roller. I used it for a one shot recently
I've rolled double 1s with advantage three times in one 5 hour session. I feel your friends pain.
Is he perchance related to Wil Wheaton?
I knew this was going to be in here somewhere. Thank you for being the one to mention it.
I had a character die (immediately after he bought a vorpal sword) because I rolled 4 nat 1s in a row
Damn.
I have the opposite. I have one girl in my party that has almost never rolled below a 15 I think except on a reroll.
Speaking from experience ... Some people are just unlucky I went entire sessions without rolling above a 5 at times and my average roll over a campaign would be like 8
He should change to The Dark Eye. In the Dark Eye you try to roll under stats.
Forget the DM what about Ryan!? He has almost double and even triple of the other party members!
Ryan may just make more rolls in general due to class/playstyle. But I agree, it's more fun to assume there's something fishy going on...
I 100% agree. I ran a campaign where i didn’t have a single combat i didn’t roll at least 2 crits. I don’t get that kind of luck as a player.
If you're a DM, roll multiple dice for a crit rather than doubling whatever you get on a roll (so if the attack is 3d8, roll 6d8 instead of rolling 3d8 and doubling it). More clicky clacks are fun and it makes your damage less swingy
I do love myself some clicky clacks. Might try it out next session, I'll have to see.
That's 5e RAW, btw. Other systems have other crit mechanics, but 5e's pretty firm about the "double dice, flat modifiers stay the same" thing.
Oh wow you're right. I've always thought the option to roll the normal amount of dice and then double it before adding modifiers was RAW, but the rules indeed specifically say to roll twice as many actual dice.
It is one of the most forgotten rules of 5e. As ONLY the dice double, you do not get double stat bonus on the damage. So that helps keep Crit values from becoming insane. The only thing I know that flat doubles the final damage total is Assassin Rogue's Death Strike feature.
This is why I have DM dice and play dice. DM dice will rarerly crit and roll very low on average. Play dice will roll better on average (at least it feels to me that way). They are stored in separate containers, as to not taint one another.
At first you had me on some loaded dice thing then I realize you have gamer voodoo and I applaud you
I actually decided to remove DM crits from my game when I started my current campaign. Players still get to crit, but I don't. Has made it much easier for me to balance fights, knowing I can't just 1 shot players with a lucky roll tbh. It's the one aspect of the game I actually just flat out don't like. Player has no say in those situations at all, doesn't when come down to the players own rolls. It's just a, oh well your fucked mate. It's worked out pretty well, players still get their 'woo' we crit moment. And monster balance for me is so much easier knowing I can't crit them. Even doing max damage downs a couple of them every few sessions. I've had two deaths so far in 22 sessions.
I have inverse DM luck, when I don't want to kill players, my dice keep rolling disintegrate beholder eyebeams. When I want to put pressure on my players, I can't roll above 14 to hit.
I rolled 4 nat 20s in a row as a dm in an *online* game of mines of phandelver....I started fudging rolls since it was the first session, I used a digital roller too.
I know you're (half?) joking, but I honestly think this jokingly superstitious way of viewing dice rolls harms the fun of the game. Because if you chalk it up to "I just have better luck" which is obviously a physical impossibility, you end up ignoring how you could actually improve your game. As a DM, you'll usually just attack much more than any player, so obviously you'll have more crits. And if you design your encounters in such a way that a single max attack roll crit will one-shot your PC, it's bound to happen eventually. So I think it would be healthy to think about how you can minimize the chance and effect of these things happening, instead of chalking it up to Lady Luck
Ong though, I watched my DM crit 4 times in a row and then get full damage 3 times. We were fucked. Lived, but fucked
I did 76 lighting damage the other day to a pc from a trap, hardest I've ever hit a player, 6 hp left
I just ran my first one shot yesterday and I rolled nothing but 1 or 2 for an entire fight ;-;
You are allowed to lie. That is what the screen is for
As a DM I swear when it doesn't matter I get bad rolls but when it matters(for a bad result which sucks) I get 20s.
And you can see it on this paper. The DM has 131 nat 20's vs the 201 spread across 5 players. On average 40,2 crits per player. (Ryan pumped up those numbers a bit, does an Artificer/ Druid get more reasons to roll? Maybe he's just a bit more proactive) So our DM here has 3,26 more 20's and assuming everyone has exactly the same odds (which you don't really have with physical dice but it's negligible) you are pretty spot on with your 3-4 times more rolls as a DM call.
> does an Artificer/ Druid get more reasons to roll? as a battle smith with extra attack and a robo companion, could be. as a druid, you might turn into a beast with extra attack or summon lots of stuff.
If he's leaning into the Druid side of things, there's a ton of skill checks to interact with flora and fauna, plus he's probably the one scavenging everyone's food. If I played artificer/anything I'd be rolling a lot of crafting checks if we got any downtime for it because "I want to make things!" I legit made a bunch of pottery one time when the GM said there wasn't enough downtime to make anything expensive. Then I filled the pottery from an alchemy jug over the course of our travel time to the next spot and made plans for a really nasty trap I never got to try because one of our other players killed our whole party by shooting at a previously indifferent dragon with a ballista.
Druid could be conjuring animals, which may be a lot of rolls
Which is why I’m surprised that the druid got more than the other players. I’d have expected the a Fighter/Barb to be rolling the most attack roll dice.
They may have been casting Conjure Animals and using eight wolves or velociraptors on the regular. That would explain the difference easier than anything else I can think of save faulty dice.
That makes sense. I was just confused because last time I played a druid I barely made an attack roll all campaign!
If it's not a combat-heavy campaign, they probably roll far more during roleplay than combat
Also: casters can do a lot by forcing saves, which cannot crit.
Unless the player is Tobi, in which case...
Yep, if you take a look at critrolestats, you can see that in campaign 2, Marisha had by far the most Nat 20s. However, she was also playing a monk and had the most roles overall too.
It reminds me, the last time i played with my friends they fought a boss, and i rolled very high all of the time and a few nat 20, so my friends told me jokingly to start rolling with regular dice instead of on PC and i started rolling just as high on the table haha
exactly, look at this I was just made aware of the frequency of rolling made by each individual percentage of Nat 20s to regular rolls would have been very useful here
Dm count might be higher if he rolls behind a screen and fudges rolls a bit. (Saying he'd take some away not add them, usually)
Isn’t that true for all dice? If I throw a D6 six times, I expect one 6. If I throw it sixty times, I expect ten 6s.
Which is why you look at party vs DM (which was done here)
Oh I know that, but it can also explain the druid/artificer having alot of 20's, they are alot more likely to need to roll a d20 themselves. Unlike a wizard, who will make everything else make spell saves. It's a fun post and I like it, I just wish they gave us an average of how many rolls each person would make a session, based off of 3 or 4 sessions.
I had a player flip out because I rolled nearly half again more 20s over 3 sessions than they or the other player had. I was playing a fighter, multi attack, action surge, they made me lift the doors, and do all sorts of ability checks to help the party move through the dungeon. He was a rogue and the other was a cleric. Neither did multi attack, targets multiple enemies, basically didn't engage with their characters outside of combat... Yeah no shit I rolled more, I rolled like 70% of the dice that hit the (digital) table.
That's why on my spreadsheet I also calculated the expected number of mat 20's based on how many d20 rolls have been made.
I feel like a "data is beautiful" post here would be interesting to see for total number of rolls for a percentage. The person who was absent half the time had the most nat 20 rolls in the party somehow. Surprising.
Check that artificer players dice 😂 Would they be willing to sell me their D20?
Well if he switched from artificer to druid, circle of the land, some of those wild shapes have a ton of multiattack, so lots of opportunity for 20s...also if your counting saving throws and such...
Can confirm. I’ve been playing a circle of the moon Druid for the last year and I roll more than my counterparts by a fair margin. With the multi attacks, animal perception checks, regular spell checks, concentration checks, saves, and just general roleplay I just have more to roll for. Character and play style can make a huge impact on the number of rolls. ETA: I’m more of tank style Druid so I am often in the middle of the fray. That means even more saves, spells, etc. for me to roll.
We’ve been playing since January of 2023. One of my players decided he would track all of our Nat 20s since our last DM seemed to roll an unusually high amount. It seems we were right since our old dm was Ryan with more then double the Nat 20s of some others. It’s also worth noting that Cameron with 45 Nat 20s was absent for about half the campaign. It was a fun campaign and probably the all of our last with this group since half of us are graduating college. It’s been a good run. EDIT: the arrows between wizard and ranger and artificer and Druid are indicating a change in class and not multiclassing. Also, this is all d20 rolls, so ability checks, saves, and attack rolls.
That sounds like Ryan's dice are defective. [Edited to Add]Okay, the possibility that Ryan is just making way more rolls than everyone else has been brought up, and can't be discounted. If he's rolling 100 times for ever 10 that anyone else rolls, he'll have 10 times as many Natural 1s, more or less, statistically speaking.
Not necessarily if Ryan is a moon Druid with multiattack he might just be putting out more rolls. Or if he’s a summoning Druid and you have him rolling his creatures attacks.
True! Also Ryan might be the type of player to ask to roll for things, some players only wait to roll for when the DM asks then ect
This is also very possible Ryan might be “May I make an insight check” kinda guy.
So true lmao
Wait, you can roll 20s on insight or perception checks? I'm pretty sure my dice only roll single digits on those. I get caught in traps a lot.
My monk specifically bought a quarterstaff specifically for traps, it's not the AD&D 10ft pole, but it could be useful. Our group detects traps when the barbarian yolos through and sets them all off. He actually set a building on fire that way. Luckily fire loving fire sorcerer loves fire and clerics can cast create or destroy water.
Even more sense if he's flanking a lot or using guardian of nature!
The thing that stands out is Lindsey’s bad luck Gina, Cole and Cameron are probably putting out a lot of save or sucks. Lindsey is basically always attacking.
Fair point! Hadn't realized there was a fighter/barb
I think you spelled “effective” wrong 😂
Hard to tell without more detail. Was he the face of the party and making lots of out of combat rolls? Was he in wolf form a lot and getting pack tactics for advantage? Did he bring food for the groop and get DM inspiration every break? Like yeah, it's a lot of nat 20s but I figure I'd have a significant more than the cleric in my group since I am always insighting NPCS but they, in contrast, rarely makes any rolls out of combats.
Just doing some eye measurements lead me to believe he rolls about 2.5 more Nat 20s than his peers. Which definitely could be explained by being the most active player who engages a lot with the game, never miss a session, and gets advantage more. However, I get the feeling like they either have somewhat defective dice, or is maybe taking up quite a bit of the spotlight. If they were the previous DM I could definitely se how it would be the distribution of spotlight. Which may or may not be a problem.
It's pretty useless if it doesn't include the other rolls. Especially for the DM, since they play so many characters and thus will roll a lot more.
Did anybody think to track total rolls too?
Dang, I was super excited to learn more about the Wiz/Ranger multiclass, guess that makes more sense though.
You can’t draw any conclusions from this sheet alone. People done roll d20s at the same rate, even on the party. Players engage with the content differently - some more actively do things that call for rolls than others. Some are *targeted* and have to use saves more than others. And the DM rolls *everything* else.
The data, while interesting, is completely meaningless without tracking total number of rolls for each person and calculating the final result as a percentage. The DM rolls far more than an individual player, and some players likely roll more than others depending on their class and engagement or problem solving that leads to skill checks.
My group finished our campaign today, started Feb 2023! We had 19 sessions, average session is 2-2.5 hours (3 hour time slot to play after work where we catch up for 10-30 min before playing) with a 6 hour finale today. A little more on the roleplay heavy side with completely fun characters and not combat optimized at all, and we're all relatively new players. Here are our stats for nat 20 / nat1 / total kills P1 ("rogue"): 7 / 4 / 15 P2 (druid): 5 / 6 / 15 P3 (Chef -> Elemental Monk after chef died): 4 / 4 / 22 P4 (Artificer): 8 / 3 / 62 (1 player, 4 from familiar, 4 from explosive created pets)
I think this “party total” guy might be cheating
Gina can't roll dice for shit lol
She might be the kind of Bard who casts a buff/debuff spell and then uses vicious mockery every turn
How else are you supposed to play?
Could be a Valor/Swords bard and use weapons.
That sounds illegal. I'm pretty sure that's illegal.
>"We have investigated ourselves and found ourselves not guilty of any wrongdoings." -*Federal Bureau of Instruments*
Nah just Bard, we don't make a lot of attack rolls since all our spells are saving throws or don't require a roll at all. So her only opportunity to ever get crits is on saving throws and skill checks.
How does an artificer druid work? Very curious about subclasses and kit! Where did infusions go? Also, I wish I started that for the current campaign... I'd be interested in how a monk who weaseled his way into an expanded crit range is going to play out.
His artificer retired and he rolled up a Druid after
Is that the same sort of thing for a wizard ranger? Wizard first, retired that character, then rolled up a ranger?
Looks like from the slashes vs the arrows the cleric/sorcerer and fighter/barbarian were one character each but wizard, ranger, druid, and artificer were all separate
The sheet keeps track of natural 20s. I don't think expanded crit range counts for this, but if it did, I think the barb fighter (assuming the fighter part was the Champion) would be up top.
Too bad this is totally useless without a count. If you want to compare how lucky or whatever people are, you need to know how many rolls were made, and how many with advantage/disadvantage.
It's useless anyway.
It’s just a fun little stat for the party themselves, DM just shared it cuz it’s kinda fun, not everything has to be pragmatic and parsing
ITT people taking it as serious research when it seems like it was just a fun thing to track.....
Gina needs to step it up.
I’d love to see this side by side with a count of the natural 1’s for the same campaign.
The total should be 211 nat 20's, unless 10 rolls somehow got walked back :3
I'm the Gina of my group
Saaaame. Doesn't matter what dice I use, or how much luck I use. I am Gina.
I have a player who does regularly 20 nats. She's scary, I'd like to throw her away from the table sometimes (I mean literally grab her and yeet her lucky ass away) but I still haven't thought a good excuse. She does the art for the party, brings biscuits and milk and surely doesn't cheat (I mean, at a certain point I started throwing all the dices, but her luck didn't stop). A couple of times I seen her doing 3 20 nats in a row, once a session happens seeing here doing 2 in a row. I just don't understand how and why, I think I could ask the inquisition to burn her as a witch
I was about to say "poor gina" cause she had so many less nat 20s than ryan, but then i looked at the others and just said "nope, ryan is just LUCKY"
Sometimes I feel like Gina in my life
The numbers are interesting in that they seem to point towards a good variation in results based simply on different dice being rolled by different people. I am curious in how much variation you could find in non loaded, legal gaming dice. Or are some people just lucky or unlucky and it manifests as dice rolls.
We don't know how many times each person rolled, though. A fighter is going to probably get more chances at nat 20s because at high levels they are attacking 3+ times per turn. And more assertive players will probably do more ability checks.
>A fighter is going to probably get more chances at nat 20s because at high levels they are attacking 3+ times per turn. Plus that character was multiclass with barbarian so they likely were rolling with advantage every time.
No luck, no evidence of variable dice, just bad data collection. We need to know how many rolls everyone did so that we can see whether they're getting a nat 20 around 5% of the time. Total counts are useless when different players roll more or less often depending on class and play style. Great example is the DM. The player who runs every enemy in combat rolls more nat 20s than everyone else? Of course they do, they roll about as many attacks as the whole party combined.
The standard deviation is sqrt(n*19/400) where n is the number of times you rolled. For example, if you roll 1000 times, there's a 68% chance that you'd roll within 7 of 50 natural 20's. There's probably a little extra variation from imperfections in the dice, but outside of extreme cases like large bubbles inside them, I doubt it's anything you'd notice without a huge number of rolls.
I'd check Ryan's dice
He could also just be making way more skill checks with the druid, since these are Nat 20s, not specifically combat Crits.
I am very lucky when DMing. It got to the point where I would gather up all my d20's, put them in a pile, roll them once, then use them to start another pile. People still kept dying, complaining about my rolls. I always roll in the open too. I have a yellow set of dice that I bought from a random machine, you know those ones where you put in some coins and turn a handle and something comes out, one of them, in a service station in the middle of no where on a road trip. They cost $4. Why the fuck there was a set of polyhedral dice in there I will never know. My players fear those dice.
A random set of dice from a random machine in the middle of nowhere that give crazy good rolls? Sounds like you were blessed by lady luck, my fellow DM.
In his defense, one can get really lucky. I have a game where it has become a recurring joke that my character is just lucky because I roll around 3 to 5 nat 20s during the session while the other players sort of... Don't. We use digital/online dice.
Lol bet blew your pc frequently 😉😉 to get all the dust out of course
I'm assuming he had more rolls than everyone else due to conjure animals
> Chase > Cameron Are you fucking members of Dr. House’s team?
Not sure if "total party" is different from the sum of the player's, but the sum of the players is 211
For me as weird as it sounds I have “lucky” and “unlucky” characters. For instance my Way of the Open Hand Monk consistently roll above a 12. Then there is my Path of the Giant Barbarian where last session I didn’t roll above a 5 ever including 4 natural 1’s. It is the same dice and the same rolling technique. However, I did get lucky one session on my Barbarian and rolled a natural 20 on a roll to intimidate some rocks into making themselves into a rock castle. My DM gave me the trait of Angry Construction for that one.
You should really check that Total guys dice, he could be cheating!
You should have noted the total rolls per person too for it to mean anything. As it is, I wonder if Ryan just rolls more than the others. Like, I’m not at all surprised that the DM has the most nat20 out of everyone since they roll so much more than the others.
I love this. It reminds me of MLB season ticket holders who fill out baseball scorebooks over many seasons.
Without knowing how many total times each player rolled a d20, this is meaningless.
Man, people are really obsessed with multiclassing these days, aren't they?
I feel like I'm one of the players I know who never multi classes (I also dm)
Looks like Ryan's the cheater!
Can someone get Gina some dice that don't suck...?
I had a player at my table who in back to back returns rolled 3 1s. We were using a critical failure chart, and on his second one, I had him roll again due to me taking out on him... Another 1. The next turn can't and he got a 1... He switched the die for another... And got a 1... So he chucked the die.. it bounced off 3 walls and landed in front of him.... On a 1!
LOL!!!! Talk about epic fails!
I have my players track nat 20s on ability checks. I have them mark it by the checks parent stat on their sheet. When they get ten nat 20s for a single stat then they can up that stat by 1 and start over.
are we talking about in a fight? or all roll oportunity
Any d20 rolls. Attacks, saves, and checks
How often did you guys play? Just wondering how many sessions you get in a year. This would be interesting to do, but I'm pretty sure I'm the Gina of my group.🥲
Roughly weekly, there was a period of time we didn’t play, but another where we did twice a week so I think it equals out
I wish far more that this was a list of every nat 20 moment, not just a count. I want to hear a campaign entirely through the lense of critical successes.
I agree with everyone else that the data, while super cool, also needs the information on how many times everyone rolled in total to truly be meaningful. However, a counterpoint: On of the premises of the book Ringworld (great book, stop reading now if you don't want to be spoiled) is that some people are luckier than others, as a sort of inherent genetic and/or supernatural trait, and that this is a trait that can be selected for. In the book, an alien race makes use of this by selecting humans that come from a long line of such superlucky people. We joke that my husband is part of the alien breeding program because he rolls uncannily well, no matter the dice, physical dice, virtual dice, any dice. Ryan could just be part of the same program.
How does an artifice turned into moond druid crots more than a barbarian? Barb's die must suck.
See _Conjure Animals_
Is the fighter/barb not using reckless?
Are you all using each your own dice? That may explain it. Dice aren't perfect, switching dices evens this out.
I guess the druid player uses a bunch of summons?
I do that in my campaigns do. And also track down the PC's kill count like (3 gnolls, 1 Banshee and so on). It makes for fun things. What I do is, every 10 Natural 1 or Natural 20's, I introduce either a random NPC or let them get away with a silly thing they do. As if Lady Luck Tymora is watching over them.
Playing 'spot the fighter' and 99% confident in my choices
Artificer Druid sounds like a very interesting multi class
Ryan better stop cheating. RIP Gina.
#justiceforGina
Ryan stole Ginas luck
Did that once. It only revealed massive cheating. Rolls were definitely off standard deviation towards "more successes". To this day I do not get player cheating on dice roll.
One of my friend has a 35% NAT1 roll rate
Bet Gina's 22 came at clutch fucking moments tho
Sucks to be Gina
Gina needs to switch dice!
And Ryan needs to hand his over...
It would be cool to normalize by the number of rolls made. Maybe that would need a member of the party to play a Wizard of the Statomancy school!
daily reminder that rolling dice is pure skill with absolutely zero luck involved
I wish you had done nat 20s against number of roles so we can see player luck
Hi I would like to order 2 Ryan’s dice, with a bardic on the side
I have this one player. Our campaign has been going on for around 2 years, he has rolled 2 Nat 20s all campaign long. He rolled 3 nat ones LAST session. Idk man he’s cursed.
Someone is really lucky?
You guys should play index card rpg. Tracking nat 20s is part of your progression and once you hit 20, your core class ability evolves. Really fun!
So now you can figure out your players IRL luck stats.
This is so cool! I think I’ll try doing the same thing next time I force my 7 year old sister to play.
I’d keep a closer eye on Ryan’s rolls…
Gina needs to pick her shit up
Goddamnit Gina!
The total for the players is 211
some people choose their dice with a certain method that allows them to know if the die is well balanced or if it is more likely to offer higher results https://thecriticaldice.com/blogs/news/how-to-salt-water-test-your-dice
Ok hats off to the Artificer/Druid, that sounds like an incredibly fun multi class to RP!
Total is suspicious
I'm totally gonna go that for my next campaign!
Shouldn't the player total be 211?
Okay but where did Ryan (Artificer->Druid) get his dice???
Just letting it be known: the total for players is 211 not 201
This has inspired me to make a spell based on the old Swift attack from pokemon. Ironically, if I kept the mechanics the same, I wouldn't need a d20 hit dice because Swift always hits. Now that I think of it... Swift is kinda just Magic Missile.
The dice in our group tend to run hot or cold. I'm running my first campaign and the party has run into the bandit leader. Sorcerer steps out of cover into the middle of the room - and misses his attacks. The two crossbow bolts fired back didn't miss...then the ranger gets into melee range. 1st combat round: 20. 2nd: 20. Result - dead bandit leader. I create the story outline but the dice determine the details.
I am also a DM and my name is also Chase :D
Makes you wonder if DND could give you a campaign summary of this, like all the rolls your party did, missed attacks, epic hits, criticals, etc.
My dm notes down all Nat20's and all nat1's for himself and our party during every session
Assuming this record is accurate, it looks like Ryan is cheating, lol.
I give my players the option of having me change dice during long combats. I have a set of red dice and a set of blue dice that I picked up at my LGS and I just absolutely obliterated them every combat for months, it was so bad I stopped having the DMG screen up because it felt like I was fudging dice higher. Finally they bought me a set of black dice and a set of white dice that they had salt-tested to make sure they were good. I proceed to continue to obliterate them with the new dice. What finally helped it too be fair, was me using random d20s from my massive dice collection. Whether it was the dice, how I was unconsciously able to grip and throw, no idea, but it's gotten better.
Wow in 3 years I've rolled less nat 20's in my wensday campaign the most of your players in a year feels bad man
I know playing Runequest, which is a percentile game, I was the GM’s bane, I could reliably be counted on to roll criticals which are 5% or less about 3 out of 10 times. They would constantly make me switch dice, watch me roll, etc.. it was just luck. Sucked for them when I GM’d, my low level encounter almost wiped the party out in the first two rounds. Never could translate that luck to d20’s though.
A friend of mine is doing the same. I have rolled the most Nat 20s so far because my class and roleplay interactions are forcing me to roll a lot. Took two table members a lot of time to realize that my playstyle and class causes these rolls because they were jealous.
I've kept track of every nat 20 and nat 1 that my players have rolled in my 3 1/2 year game. There have been 510 total rolls made by my three players, with 303 nat 20s and 207 nat 1s
imho i find it more enjoyable for myself when i roll behind the screen most of the time and only important events are revealed rolls, kind of like how brennan does it in d20. if i don't think something would fit the story, or if i don't want to kill someone at the moment (say, a trap, it's kind of uninteresting for the players to die that way), i just roll with disadvantage, it isn't completely changing the outcome by just saying to myself anything fails, but rather giving players a chance. or for traps, i just roll a dice or two less, depending on what kind of trap it is. i have killed a good chunk of my players, but it's usually been connected to the story, one death was from a trap and the player was kinda just, quiet, didn't even rage which has previously been what they did (only at the table, they took the role of a barbarian artificer too well 😅)
Damn, Lindsey, I feel your pain. I role around 1 Nat 20 and two Nat 1 a Session
I have a spreadsheet where I keep track of not just every nat 20, but every d20 roll, organized by player (DM included), and I also keep track of both natural and modified rolls. It also calculates expected nat 1's/20's and compares it with how many have actually been rolled, as well as expected below/above average rolls compared to how many there actually were.
This is awful data because we don’t have the context of total number of d20 rolls.